Draft Rules For Online Gaming:
The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has released the Draft Rules for Online Gaming.
- The proposed rules have been introduced as an amendment to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Draft Rules:
- Online games will have to register with a self-regulatory body, and only games cleared by the body will be allowed to legally operate in India.
- The self-regulatory body will have a board of directors with five members from diverse fields, including online gaming, public policy, IT, psychology and medicine.
- There could be more than one self-regulatory body and all of them will have to inform the Centre about the games they have registered along with a report detailing the criteria for registering.
- Online gaming firms will be required to undertake additional due diligence, including KYC of users, transparent withdrawal and refund of money, and a fair distribution of winnings.
- For KYC, they will have to follow norms laid down for entities regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
- Gaming companies will also have to secure a Random Number Generation Certificate, which is typically used by platforms that offer card games to ensure that game outputs are statistically random and unpredictable.
- They will also have to get a “no bot certificate” from a reputed certifying body.
- Online gaming companies will not be allowed to engage in betting on the outcome of games.
- Similar to social media and e-commerce companies, online gaming platforms will also have to appoint a compliance officer who will ensure that the platform is following norms, a nodal officer who will act as a liaison official with the government and assist law enforcement agencies, and a grievance officer who will resolve user complaints.
